I can understand where the lawsuit is coming from and frankly, the styling IS a rip-off.

but Copyrighting shapes is silly, all large over-ear headphones are going to have the same generic shape, 2 cans and a headband. yes beats are selling the look but trying to sue is almost as daft as say... apple trying to patent a rectangle with rounded corners.

My son has an SL300 and there are significant differences- light up logos, quilted padding under the headband, different color schemes and cord colors as well as other design differences. I think the difference between Yamaha and "rapper cans" like Soul, Street and others is that the rapper cans made an effort to present some differentiation from Beats.

For instance, with so many cheap knock-offs lying about, would the target audience (teenagers) not avoid wearing these very obvious copies because they might otherwise be called out for having "fake" Beats?

Maybe they're actually scared that, Yamaha being a reputable audio company and all, actually has the sound to back up the looks.
Or i'm just over-thinking it, that they're suing them just because they're reputable, and they'll make a profit out of it.

You may be right and this may all be part of their marketing plan if they are chess players looking several moves ahead. The Yamaha thread here, while receiving positive praise from several seasoned Head-fiers for their sound, has only experienced a fraction of the activity from comparable new releases from Sony, V-Moda, Sennheiser and AKG. This controversy puts Yamaha out there in the same breath as Beats to the masses, especially if the story is picked up by national media.